Senator Ted Cruz thinks he has found an answer to the ongoing dilemma on how to pay for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall: Seize the assets from Mexican drug cartel leaders currently in U.S. custody. On Thursday, Cruz, a Texas Republican who supports the idea of the wall, introduced a bill—The Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order (EL CHAPO) Act—to use a proposed $14 billion from jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera to foot the bill for the wall.

"By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and his ilk, we can offset the wall’s cost and make meaningful progress toward achieving President Trump’s stated border security objectives,” Cruz said in a statement.

Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest narcotics cartel, was extradited to the U.S. in January. He is currently awaiting trial on 17 criminal charges in a maximum-security jail in Manhattan. Guzmán twice escaped from prison in Mexico.

Cruz's figure is not arbitrary. U.S. authorities are indeed seeking the "forfeiture of more than $14 billion in cash proceeds from narcotic sales" that El Chapo Guzmán has allegedly earned over a 30 year-long criminal career, U.S. Eastern District of New York court documents show.

In addition, Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, the former leader of the brutal Mexican Zeta cartel, was sentenced this month to life in federal prison in the District of Columbia. Prosecutors said Beltrán Leyva, who pleaded guilty, operated a drug trafficking scheme that generated revenues estimated to be in the billions. According to court documents, authorities are seeking forfeiture of $10 billion.

While $24 billion would certainly pay for Trump's border wall (construction is estimated to cost between $15 and $22 billion), the chances of Cruz's bill passing are slim. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 60% of adults oppose building the border wall, while 37% support it. Furthermore, most Texas Republicans in Congress have expressed opposition to the wall, and it has no support among Senate Democrats.

In the unlikely case that El Chapo Act is passed, enacting the bill would face an uphill political battle with Mexico, which adamantly opposes the wall, let alone paying for it.

Claudia Algorri, spokesperson for Mexico's Foreign Ministry, had no comment on Cruz's bill. The press office of Mexico's Attorney General did not return phone calls.

"Just like prohibition did not stop alcohol consumption, the wall would not stop drug trafficking. Demand controls the market. [Under Cruz's bill] U.S. consumers of narcotics will end up paying for the wall," Sergio Aguayo, a Mexican political columnist, professor at El Colegio de Mexico and author of books on security, told me. Aguayo said that if Cruz's idea were to move forward, it would be an opportunity to separate the facts from the myth that drug kingpins are billionaires.

Whatever assets El Chapo and other cartel leaders may have, the vast majority is likely to be in Mexican territory. "The lion's share of any of his assets seized, rightfully--by law and agreement--belong to Mexico. They are unlikely to find much--certainly not $14 billion. Mexico will never agree," Bruce M. Bagley, an expert on Mexico's drug cartels at the University of Miami, told me.

"Possession is 9/10ths of the law," David Gaddis, a former chief of enforcement operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told me. "Whoever has their hands on the cash can do what they want with it."

When asked how Senator Cruz plans to seize assets in Mexico, Phil Novack, Cruz's spokesperson, referred me to the Department of Justice indictment of El Chapo.

Michael Zweiback, a former prosecutor who works at the law firm Alston & Bird, believes it is feasible to seize assets, but not without a long, complex process that would require Mexico's cooperation. Zweiback explained: "The assets frozen would be pursuant to international treaty initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice. After issuance of an order for seizure in Mexico, the funds would be frozen and processed in Mexico through the government. The seized assets would be shared between the countries, which is in exchange for the seizing country's cooperation and the remaining funds then returned to the U.S. The U.S. funds would be placed in the general treasury and could then be allocated for a specific purpose or by Congressional mandate used for a specific purpose."

There is also an ongoing debate over how much Guzmán is really worth. Alejandro Hope, a security expert in Mexico City, called Cruz's bill "monumental nonsense." To begin with, Hope said, "It starts off from the assumption that the $14 billion amount is real and not a fabrication by the prosecutors."

Bagley, from the University of Miami, also questioned the figure. He "guesstimated" El Chapo's wealth around $2 to $4 billion at most.

The $14 billion amount is by far the highest dollar figure ever associated with Guzmán's criminal activities. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, drug trafficking generates an estimated $64 billion annually from sales in the U.S. In 2009, FORBES estimated Guzmán's net worth at $1 billion. But in 2013, at a time when Guzmán's whereabouts were unknown and his likely access to those assets limited, FORBES removed him from the billionaires rankings because it decided his assets were too difficult to verify.

As a senior foreign correspondent based in Washington, D.C., I cover politics, trade and finances for print media and radio in Mexico. I was Washington correspondent for the Mexican daily El Financiero during the NAFTA negotiations. My book, "U.S. Ambassadors to Mexico," pub...